>>REVIEW
THE THEORY OF THE LOSER CLASS
Jon Paul Fiorentino
Coach House Books, 88 pp.
Jon Paul Fiorentino is a witty guy, and a lot of this wit finds its way into The Theory of the Loser Class. However, the question remains, to what end? Fiorentino has taken American writer Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class, a sociological work often viewed as a satire of social mores among America’s turn-of-the-century upper and middle classes for his inspiration. One of Veblen’s main ideas, termed "conspicuous consumption," was that people desire the status of their social betters, especially in terms of material possessions. A key aspect of this was how the upper classes spent their time, giving his work its title. The financial security of the elite allowed them to engage in "frivolous," non-economically oriented activities, like philosophy, or more to the point here, poetry.
Fiorentino’s stated aim is to celebrate the suburban youth who are affluent in terms of time and/or wealth, but fail to find success. There is a wonderful sense of wordplay in The Theory of the Loser Class that anyone who has spent a summer after high school or university living in their parents’ basement working with computers, unemployed and uninspired, will identify with. Poems like "Jumpdrive Herpes" or "Memory Card," along with his frequent invocation of such nocturnal pastimes as late-night runs to Safeway and hours spent watching Letterman, speak to those of us who have killed an appreciable amount of time in front of TV and computer screens.
Unfortunately, Fiorentino’s self-deprecating humour, while funny enough in places, ultimately fails to live up to its inspiration. He repeatedly shies away from pushing his poetry into a critique of a situation that he feels is untenable. Fiorentino is smart enough, but not confident enough to take that extra risk. The Theory of the Loser Class could have been a searing indictment of the social mores that insist upon university education for all but economic options for a few. Instead, to use Veblen’s own words, Fiorentino’s work remains in "conformity to the norm of conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption," the very thing he surely wanted to avoid. |
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